Vic ToewsConservativeMinister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his continued work on this issue.

Since assuming office, Canada's new government has moved swiftly to tackle crime and protect Canadians. Our bills will keep dangerous criminals off the street. We have moved to protect children from sexual predators and to crack down on street racing. Tomorrow I will be introducing legislation dealing with dangerous offenders.

However, for the House to make this happen, the opposition parties must support these bills. They must come on board and help protect Canadians' safety.

David EmersonConservativeMinister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics

Mr. Speaker, it is always entertaining for me to listen to the new ways that the member can spew his partisan ideology and venom in the House.

It is about time the hon. member told this House and Canadians what he is really proposing. He is proposing a continuation of lumber trade wars, a continuation of litigation, a continuation of hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.S. treasury and the destruction of the softwood industry in our country.

Last Friday, as the minister knows, the Court of International Trade ruled that Canadians would get every single penny back that was illegally paid, not give away a billion dollars.

This billion dollar botched sellout by the minister is the only thing stopping Canadians from justice.

We see administrative chaos at the border, double taxation and pages of new text in the sellout that have not been made public. What a mess. What other aspects of this brutal bungling is the minister trying to cover up?

David EmersonConservativeMinister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics

Mr. Speaker, I really do not know what to say about somebody who refuses to admit the truth.

The truth is that we have been winning legal battles. The truth is that those battles can go on for two or three years. The truth is that new cases can be brought. The truth is that member does not care, he is not responsible and he is promoting a deception on the Canadian people and the workers in the softwood lumber industry.

It gets worse. The minister's political staff have confirmed that they leaked confidential documents in order to justify the minister's irresponsible and unprecedented actions. The minister received this contract under the strict condition that confidentiality would be respected as required under the Privacy Act.

Did the minister and his staff circulate this confidential contract to the media knowing full well that Canadian taxpayers would be held liable?

Mr. Speaker, the Ottawa Citizen editorial of last Saturday has a good message for my colleague opposite. It states:

Turns out there are some people who favour secrecy, who are happy to keep the taxpayer in the dark, and not surprisingly they belong to the federal Liberal party -- the same party that when in power was hardly famous for openness and transparency.

If the mayor and his Liberal friends want to stand on the side of government secrecy, that's their business. But as a political position, it's hardly a vote-winner....

Given that Canada's major west coast ports are much closer to the vibrant market and commercial ports of Asia than our American competitors, would the minister please tell the House how the Asia-Pacific gateway announcement made on October 11 will help B.C. ports compete for a greater share of Asia-Pacific shipping and the west coast to become the great economic engine of Canada?

David EmersonConservativeMinister of International Trade and Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for all the work she has done on the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative.

The government is committed to a productive, competitive and efficient economy. The gateways and corridors initiative is one part of this program. It is focused. It is efficient. It minimizes bureaucracy. It minimizes decision delay. It accelerates funding of over $300 million with $591 million in total to be spent over the next five or six years.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of International Trade went overboard, although I understand he is desperate, defending a very bad deal, but his comments in question period today were completely unacceptable in a parliamentary context.

He has to respect members of Parliament. Yes, we will be posing tough questions and if he cannot answer them that is his problem, but the personal insults that he just leveled during this question period were inappropriate.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that you would review the blues and take the appropriate measures.

Pierre PoilievreConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the question of privilege raised by the member for Mississauga South in the House of Commons on October 5.

The member for Mississauga South has claimed that he was threatened, that he felt intimidated and that his right of free speech was infringed upon.

Let us review the facts. During my October 4 address before the House of Commons, I pointed out that the Liberal Party was soft on crime. The member for Mississauga South, who is also soft on crime, rose on a point of order to interrupt my remarks. It was the 14th time that he had risen on a point of order in this Parliament.

In that interruption he began to refute my arguments and engage in debate. Your Chair, Mr. Speaker, correctly dismissed the member's intervention as a speech which was masquerading as a point of order.

This is nothing new for that particular member. He has a long history of abusing points of order. He has intervened to make 10 false points of order in the House of Commons. Those are 10 points of order that have been summarily dismissed or ruled out of order by your Chair. This occasion was no different at all.

Mr. Speaker, on the date in question, October 4, the member rose again on another false point of order which your Chair ultimately dismissed. After hearing this intervention from the member and after having been interrupted by another false point of order by the member, I strolled over to the other side of the House, as is my right and as is customary in this place as we can see members doing right now, and I told him that if he continued to interrupt me with false points of order that eventually I would need to raise a few of points of order on him.

However, he spun around in his chair very promptly and said that he felt threatened and intimidated. He then rose in the House of Commons the very next day on a question of privilege and announced that his right to freedom of expression had been robbed and that he was being intimidated into silence.

I find it difficult to imagine how he could have been intimidated into silence when he in fact was speaking in the House of Commons, but somehow he felt that was the case.

There is no basis for the member's question of privilege but in any of these the deciding factor is intent and it is clear that I had no intent of intimidating or threatening the member in any way. It is a logical impossibility that the member could have been silenced given that he has lavished us on two separate occasions with interventions in the House since that alleged threat occurred.

Beyond all of the back and forth, Mr. Speaker, the facts are these. I have done nothing to prevent the member from speaking freely. We know that because he continues to speak. There is no way that I could have obstructed him from carrying out any of his parliamentary duties because he continues to carry out those duties regularly.

Mr. Speaker, has the member given you one single solitary example of a parliamentary function that he has not been able to carry out as a result of my conversation with him on October 4? Has he been unable to call a constituent? Has he been unable to respond to a media question? Has he been unable to rise in the House of Commons and make an intervention? Has he been unable to attend a committee?

The answer to all of these questions is no. In other words, in no way, shape or form have I inhibited his ability to function around the House of Commons and, as such, he is rising again, as has become his custom, and is abusing points of order and questions of privilege for partisan gain.

I will say, in the interest of getting on with business around this place, that if my warnings of a future point of order in any way caused the member to become afraid or intimidated or made him feel as though he could not function around this place for fear that he might experience a point of order, then I apologize to him fully and entirely and I ask him to do the same and rise in his place and apologize for having raised 10 false points of order which have been summarily dismissed by your Chair as invalid.

Mr. Speaker, it is in this spirit of non-partisanship that I offer you my remarks and I thank you for your time.

It sounds as though the matter may have concluded. I will review the comments of both hon. members and if there is anything further in terms of intervention required from the Chair, the House will hear from the Chair in due course.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 109 of the House of Commons, I am pleased to table in Parliament, in both official languages, the government's response to the first report of the Standing Committee on Official Languages entitled “Application of the Official Languages Act to ACE Aviation Holdings Inc. following the restructuring of Air Canada”.

Mr. Speaker, in accordance with section 192 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, I am tabling before Parliament, in both official languages, the annual report of the Correctional Investigator for 2005-06.

The Correctional Investigator raises many important issues. We are committed to reviewing and considering these recommendations.

Having said that, I wish to emphasize that I find there is no empirical evidence to systemic discrimination against aboriginals in the corrections system. I visited personally a number of federal institutions and have spent time with aboriginals themselves, individually and in groups. I am confident in the professionalism of the people who work for Correctional Service Canada.

Canada's new government is committed to ensuring an effective and fair federal corrections system that protects Canadians as the overarching priority.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), I wish to table a notice of ways and means motion to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, as well as explanatory notes.

I ask that an order of the day be designated for consideration of the motion.